Universal Air Travel Plan (UATP), a global payment solution for the airline industry, announces it had partnered with Bitnet as a payment processor in order to accept Bitcoin payments.
UATP, a payment network privately owned by 30 airline companies and operating for the benefit of the global airline industry, announces today it now offers its network of 260+ airline companies, the ability to accept payments in the digital currency.
"We are very happy to be partnering with Bitnet to add Bitcoin to our payment platform," said Ralph Kaiser, president and CEO of UATP. "We are always looking for skilled partners to bring additional forms of payment to the UATP processing platform and Bitnet fits the bill well."
Bitnet, a global payment management platform for digital currency based in Belfast, UK, with additional offices in Europe and the San Francisco Bay Area, will be processing Bitcoin payments for UATP.
"Bitnet and UATP share the same mission of lowering transaction costs and fraud risk for their clients," said Akif Khan, Vice President of Solutions Strategy at Bitnet.
"Partnering with UATP was an obvious choice for Bitnet. Our partnership will make it easier for UATP’s member airlines to accept payments in Bitcoin via a lightweight integration that avoids impact to downstream systems and leverages existing UATP reporting and refund interfaces."
Founded in 2014, Bitnet is staffed by payment processing and financial technology domain experts. Founders John McDonnell and Stephen Mc Namara have 40 years of combined experience as members of the senior executive team at CyberSource, a payments gateway acquired by Visa in 2010 for US$2 billion.
In early October 2014, the company concluded a partnership with mobile software provider Acromobile, enabling merchants using Acromobile Payments to accept transactions in Bitcoin.
Later that month, Bitnet announced it had raised US$14 million in a Series A funding round led by Highland Capital Partners.
UATP claims to provide a "true low-cost" alternative to expensive credit card and merchant service fees and is constantly looking to diversify its product offerings.
UATP's alternative form of payment processing initiative has been connecting airlines to online payment brands such as Alipay, Cash-Ticket, eNett International, Giropay, PayPal, SafetyPay, SVS, Ukash, Wirecard, and most recently Bitcoin.
As of today, UATP accounts are issued by 30 airline companies, including Aeromexico, Air New Zealand, American Airlines, Austrian Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, Delta Air Lines, EL AL Israel Airlines, Etihad Airways, GOL Linhas aereas inteligentes S.A., Hahn Air, Japan Airlines, Lufthansa German Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qantas Airways, Shandong Airlines, United Airlines, and US Airways.
The company claims it had processed over US$14 billion in charge volume in 2014, which translates to revenue and cost avoidance to the industry of over US$350 million.
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